AccuWeather's Bill Wadell reported live from Long Island on Dec. 11 as traffic slowed to a crawl in some areas amid heavy, cold rain.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Accuweather's Bill Waddell is live on Long Island. Bill, we see a little lightning dozens of miles to the south of Southampton. How are conditions east of the city?
00:11Hey Jeff, yeah it is a slow go here near the Brentwood area of Long Island. You can see traffic is moving along here on the Long Island Expressway but at times really slowing down when we encounter that heavier rain.
00:22I can tell you it's a much slower go farther out on Long Island where a lot of that heavy rain and the stronger winds are streaming in.
00:29We're seeing wind gusts here at times close to 25 miles an hour and we know throughout the hours heading into the evening we expect to see more rain and a lot more wind.
00:38Officials have been encouraging people to avoid the highways today if they can and to use mass transit or to work remotely so they don't get stuck in the backlogs.
00:47But at least here right now the Long Island Expressway is still moving.
00:51Now when you take a look at the video you can see most of the leaves are long gone here on Long Island and in Queens.
00:57But this rain and wind knocking down the few leaves that were left behind on the trees today.
01:02You can see all of the leaves here on the side of the ramp to the Cross Island Parkway in Queens.
01:07The crews have been busy trying to clean out all of the drains to prevent leaf clogs that can quickly cause street and urban flooding.
01:15Over New Jersey we spotted some problems on the wet roads earlier today.
01:19Police had to block several lanes of Interstate 80 near Bud Lake after this one car crash.
01:24Medics were called out to check on the driver.
01:27Police are reminding folks on the road today slow down and you leave extra space between the vehicles in front of you.
01:35Now over at the airports we can tell you that they are having some issues as well with the rain and the wind.
01:42JFK, not too far from here, LaGuardia as well as Newark.
01:45They are all on FlightAware's Misery Map with dozens of delays and cancellations.
01:50And again, Jeff, we know conditions are worse farther out on Long Island.
01:55So we're hitting the road, heading farther out.
01:57We do expect to hear and see more problems on the roads and more delays at the airports as we head into the evening hours.
02:03All right, Bill. Thanks for that update there.
02:06Misery Map for travelers and kind of miserable weather as well.
02:09We're going to check back in with you throughout the evening and tonight.